A Single Tree

In the distance, at the horizon, toward sunset,
the sole survivor of a native forest
that had vanished entirely.
It stood along a long and narrow path sloping
upward, drawing a neat separation
between one place and another, alfalfa
from field corn—a stipulated deed.
It was a mark, a landmark,
in a sheaf of maps lost when the learned
surveyors left or maybe
the courthouse had housed an arsonist,
maybe someone dropped a will into
the sea.
              None of that mattered.
It seemed as if the starlings worshipped something
there, but it was too far to tell and depth
perception fails as the light fails.
 
I used to think I knew that tree and it
knew something of me—that it would
forever be a radiant orientation,
the axis of all later turns and reversals,
fixed by roots that stretched so
deep and invisible—as far and
wide as the canopy itself.
 
But only today I realized how, every
so often–when I awaken in the night,
just for a moment, foundered, lost—
it is the tree that comes to me.
And then I feel the leaves again against
my hair, then I hear the wind
again, nearer, almost near.
And I look to the west and sleep.
I look to the west and sleep.